Several years ago, the train of thought was that AAA development studios had the scale, expertise, and financing to create in-house game engines. However, for some reason, we've seen even a shift in the gaming industry where even the largest developers are becoming more open to licensing gaming engines like Unity and Unreal Engine as opposed to using in-house creations.
Having said that, Bandai Namco Entertainment just confirmed that it's working on a new in-house gaming engine.
, the publishing giant wants to "continue to have the technological capabilities to create a solid foundation by ourselves." As we've already mentioned, larger companies can afford to eat up the cost of delegating an entire team on a game's engine as opposed to paying for fully featured and supported engines. Eventually, Bandai's in-house engine should pay for itself as the company saves money from licensing fees. Bandai Namco can also make money off of the engine by having other studios pay them to use it in their games.
The most interesting part here is that Julien Merceron is taking the lead. Merceron has worked for several of the biggest names in the gaming industry over the years. However, the current Worldwide Technology Director for Bandai Namco is perhaps best known for his time with Konami. Specifically, Merceron had a hand in Konami's Fox Engine. The proprietary in-house engine from Konami was released in 2013 and was used for Metal Gear Solid V.
